LAHORE: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) president Mian Nawaz Sharif and Prime Minister Mian Shehbaz Sharif have met the newly elected Prime Minister of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Iftikhar Gilani, in a meeting that focused on the immediate resolution of public grievances and on a compressed reform timetable for the new administration in Muzaffarabad.
According to sources, Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif and the Speaker of the Azad Kashmir Legislative Assembly, Tariq Farooq, also attended. Nawaz Sharif, Shehbaz Sharif and Maryam Nawaz congratulated Prime Minister Gilani and Speaker Farooq on their election.
The centrepiece of the meeting was a reform blueprint covering the first 100 days of the new government, which the PML-N president shared with the Azad Kashmir prime minister. It spans health, education, sanitation, infrastructure and other sectors, with a directive to set Azad Jammu and Kashmir on a path of innovation and development.
Nawaz Sharif instructed the AJK prime minister to ensure the fulfilment of commitments made to voters during the election campaign.
He said the promises made to the people of Azad Kashmir during the campaign must now be given practical shape, recalling that he had told voters a PML-N government would bring real change to their lives. Quality health and education facilities, better roads and basic infrastructure were the right of the people of Azad Kashmir, he said, adding that the benefits of development must reach remote areas and not remain confined to major towns.
Nawaz Sharif also called for new opportunities in education, skills training and employment for young people, said the 100-day programme should contain measures whose benefits reach ordinary citizens directly, and directed that the pace and progress of delivery on campaign commitments be monitored on a regular basis.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif assured the Azad Kashmir government of the federal government’s complete cooperation, saying the development of Azad Kashmir is among the federal government’s priorities.
He said the federation would provide every possible resource and support for development projects and public welfare measures in Azad Kashmir, and called on the federal and AJK governments to work jointly to improve the delivery of health, education and basic facilities.
The prime minister said particular attention should be paid to the timely completion of development projects and the immediate resolution of public problems. He called for a comprehensive strategy to expand employment, skills and economic opportunity for young people in Azad Kashmir, and urged the AJK prime minister to ensure rapid implementation of the 100-day reform agenda.
Iftikhar Gilani was elected Prime Minister of Azad Jammu and Kashmir on 28 August 2026, securing 30 of the 44 votes cast in the Legislative Assembly and defeating the Pakistan Peoples Party candidate, Sardar Mukhtar Ahmad Khan Abbasi, who received 14. PML-N lawmaker Shah Ghulam Qadir was absent and did not vote.
A barrister by training, Gilani represents LA-26 Muzaffarabad-III and previously served in the Assembly from October 2011 to August 2021, winning the seat in a 2011 by-election and retaining it in 2016. His nomination as the party’s candidate for prime minister, made by Nawaz Sharif, was opposed by some senior PML-N figures in Azad Kashmir, including Shah Ghulam Qadir and former prime minister Raja Farooq Haider.
Reports before the vote indicated the PML-N had approached the PPP through back-channel contacts about a coalition, with the federal government said to have offered the presidency and the deputy speaker’s post. The PPP declined and opted to sit in opposition.
The 100-day framing is familiar PML-N practice, and it carries a specific political logic in Azad Kashmir. The territory’s governments have been notably unstable — three prime ministers in the previous assembly term alone — and a front-loaded delivery programme is as much an instrument of internal party discipline as of governance. Gilani’s own nomination drew objection from party seniors; a visible early record of delivery is the most durable answer to that.
The harder constraint is fiscal. Azad Kashmir’s development budget depends substantially on federal transfers, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s assurance of “every possible resource” comes at a moment when the federal government is under commitments to reduce expenditure. The credibility of the 100-day plan will rest on whether a costed, published schedule of projects follows, with named funding lines.
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